Reality Check: Of Course, It Was Nicetown

February 22, 2022 Post a Comment

Reality Check: Of Course, It Was Nicetown

The shootout with city police yesterday was in a struggling stretch of North Philly that has too often seen violence. WURD'due south afternoon host wonders if now the neighborhood will get some help

Aug. xv, 2019

As worried Philadelphians and the earth were gripped past images of a trigger-happy, eight-hour collision of gun battles and crouching police, many Philadelphians weren't really all that surprised by one attribute: where it went down.

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Nicetown may be ane of the more oxymoronic designations for a big city neighborhood brutally tucked into an armpit corner of North Philadelphia. At that place are abiding jokes surrounding its proper name, even while well-nigh of its residents have struggled to carve out a defiant contradiction of normalcy. Wed'south epic shootout is a sign of Nicetown-Tioga's generations-long war with itself and the many problems that have plagued it.

Of form, a state of affairs where a half-dozen Philadelphia police officers are shot—thankfully, possibly miraculously, doing okay—is a situation that volition dramatically change the city'southward usual discourse on violence. Philly has had a growing gun violence problem for a while; it's steadily creeped into crunch status. While largely confined to the city's poorest pockets, it seemed to take a new turn with a random afternoon shooting in Center Metropolis this Monday. Perhaps that began to shake half-slumbering city officials who work, eat and play in the city's central commune, a deject of worry suddenly darkening the sidewalk below them upon realization the violence could begin spreading into Philly's hub of business, politics and tourism.

The police aren't the only ones outgunned or overwhelmed—Nicetown's residents are, besides, on more than levels than one. The signs have long been there of a community screaming for help.

Wednesday'due south shooting of six Philly police officers in the span of 1 late afternoon, withal, completely outgunned that—and may finally prompt a marked pivot from beautiful talk to rapid response. It's sad that information technology took a near-mortiferous binge to get to that. City Quango is noticeably missing; at a time when homicides this yr are on path to beat the tape number of homicides from the last, they are on a recess. Optically, it shows a complete leadership collapse that during a violent (and record-breaking oestrus + flood) summer, City Council is on holiday. We saw the Mayor, District Attorney and Police Commissioner up forepart, but nosotros certainly didn't see the City Council President yesterday evening.

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Nevertheless, whatsoever the new response is can't be limited to simply visible outrage over barricaded criminals having better firepower than police. "Our officers demand assistance, they need help with gun control. They don't deserve to be shot at with an unlimited supply of weapons and unlimited supply of bullets," said a perturbed Mayor Kenney outside Temple Infirmary afterward checking in on wounded officers. "This government, both on the federal and the country level, don't desire to practise anything about getting these guns off the streets and getting them out of the hands of criminals."

He's admittedly right, and no improve time to say that than while national cameras watch on. But, it's also that perfect fourth dimension for equal pounds of outrage and protest over how badly conditioned Nicetown-Tioga is and always has been.

The fear here is that yesterday's shooting turns into an opportunity to make Philly's violence problem all most law needs and not plenty about the needs of what is, arguably, Philadelphia's most distressed neighborhood. Ironically, information technology was merely highlighted as exactly that in the metropolis Health Department's first ever " The Health of Philadelphia's 46 Neighborhoods " study. This is where, unintentionally, this week'due south grisly episode makes all kinds of unfortunate sense.

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Full general quality of life indicators for Nicetown (one of Philadelphia's most majority-Blackness communities) are amidst the most troubling citywide, particularly when compared to Philly'south 45 other neighborhoods. In fact, it ranks 45 overall on health outcomes, just one bottom slot shy of opioid dilapidated Upper Kensington and 41 on health factors such as socioeconomic variables, physical environment, behavior and clinical care. Its life expectancy is about the lowest in the city—merely 63.9 years for men and 74.5 years for women, compared to the city average of 72.three and 79.three, respectively. In Center Urban center Due east, meanwhile, the life expectancy is 82 and 84.two years for men and women, respectively.

Clearly, something is happening in Nicetown—and no ane should be surprised because something has always happened at that place. Yous can see it just past driving or walking through it. For the past 11 years, Nicetown-Tioga has been among Philadelphia's Top ten Deadliest Neighborhoods, according to Philadelphia Inquirer homicide rate analysis . Nicetown homicides, in fact, have been on an uptick in contempo years, and—even besides homicides—information technology holds the grim stardom of beingness the almost violent identify in the city, according to Health Department data: near 245 fierce crime incidents per 100,000 people versus the citywide boilerplate of nearly 96 per 100,000 (and the Bustleton section'southward low of just fourteen).

The entire Nicetown population is nether 37,000 residents.

Nicetown homicides accept been on an uptick in recent years, and—even also homicides—it holds the grim distinction of being the most violent place in the city.

Cancer mortality rates are also off chart compared to less impoverished and more than affluent sections of the city. There are nearly 240 cancer cases per 100,000 people in that department of the urban center, compared to other sections—similar Chestnut Colina—with a little over half that. And, simply as we noted this January in a separate Reality Check cavalcade, food insecurity rates also play a major function in spiking violence.

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Philadelphia'due south food insecurity rate is at 22 percent, higher than the national boilerplate of 19 percent. There we see overlay: When we expect at a map of gun violence throughout Philadelphia, via the Inquirer, it is fascinating: The maps of poverty, gun violence and nutrient insecurity are almost identical. Massive stretches of North Philadelphia and Westward Philadelphia, areas with majority black populations, prove deep pockets of xx percent to over 30 per centum food insecurity rates. In Nicetown-Tioga, rates appear higher up the 30 percentage threshold.

We haven't even started touching on the air and water pollution indicators in Nicetown, a identify where residents and community activists have long complained of or been brutalized by high rates of asthma, respiratory disease and other chronic diseases and cancer. The metropolis, for some reason, keeps that data subconscious, refuses to deeply assess it or is indifferent on the major impacts pollution have on wellness, mental health and violence trends. What we practise know is that at that place is a link between air pollution and rising offense, as studied in this 2018 Psychology Today report hither and the data presented from a 2022 study of Chicago here . Nicetown's high violence is aggravated by that.

Yet, the same mayor who (rightfully so) expresses anger at his law beingness outgunned in Nicetown is the same mayor who'southward allowing (over resident objections) the urban center's mass transit agency, SEPTA, to build a massive natural gas plant at that place, a methane-leaking wellness hazard that will exacerbate existing bad health outcomes.

This should not be snarkily or politically misconstrued as an excuse for the shooters. Information technology'southward far from it. It'southward only strategic awareness to inform residents, city leaders, police and community organizations that they accept much piece of work to do in preventing some other and potentially much more astringent (and mortiferous) shootout of this magnitude from occurring once more. The police aren't the only ones outgunned or overwhelmed—Nicetown'south residents are, too, on more levels than one. From metropolis neglect to environmental racism, the signs have long been in that location of a community screaming for help. Let'southward hope someone in a position to practise something heard that cry Wednesday evening.

Charles D. Ellison is Executive Producer and Host of "Reality Cheque," which airs Mon-Th, iv-7 p.1000. on WURD Radio (96.1FM/900AM). Check out The Citizen'due south weekly segment on his show every Tuesday at half dozen p.m. Ellison is also Chief of B|Eastward Strategy, c atch him if yous can @ellisonreport on Twitter.

Photo via CBS Philly